Censorship in forums (Disqus)

http://www.disqus.com ^ | Self

[nomad]

While reading and commenting on stories at Breitbart, I ran into a disturbing occurrence of censorship with their linked, off-site discussion moderator, Disqus. Anyone have the 'shiznit' on this group/org?

[pepsionice]

Disqus has some kind of relationship with heavy-usage moderators.

TheLocal.de which is a English site on Germany....utilizes Disqus and it’s heavily moderated....to the point where almost none of the previous readers of the site will utilize it.

I’ve seen a couple of other sites over the past year who were all Disqus users and moderated beyond any logical sense. So I suspect that Disqus has some type of relationship with censorship supporters.

[nopardons]

DISQUS stinks!
Brietbart used to have something else, which was MUCH better, when Andrew started the site.

[Biggirl]

I do post a lot of current events stuff from Brietbart on this forum.

[Former Proud Canadian]

‘shiznit’????

[cynwoody]

I doubt that it’s DISQUS; Brietbart has changed greatly since Andrew dies and they have been censoring posts ( mods there, NOT DISQUS )for about 2 years.

My bet is Disqus has neither the money nor the motivation to censor posts. On the other hand, giving their clients that ability would qualify as a feature. I would guess, in many cases, not having the ability to moderate would be a deal breaker.

[nomad]

My college aged kids, they let one slip from time to time. Actually I think it`s kinda cool.

[nomad]

So in other words, avoid Breitbart like I already avoid the Blaze, OK, will do.

[nomad]

Do you prefer, ‘what`s the story?’, sorry, the thread is about censorship, and I try not to self-censor.

[cynwoody]

‘shiznit’????

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shiznit

[relictele]

Livefyre, it was.

[nopardons]

I do know that once BB opened the LONDON section, Brit Mods, who are kinda liberal ( of all things ), were removing or not allowing posts to posts, that were very conservative.

[nopardons]

Oh ?

[relictele]

Disqus provides the engine, the web sites provide the mods and obviously individual sites and different mods within those sites have different rules and tolerances.

Disqus solved a big problem ie it eliminated the need for commenters to register at every site. But it is a very flawed solution otherwise. For example, its threading model/implementation is poor.

Like so many monpolies, they have abused their power. Downvote totals are, inexplicably, no longer displayed. Supposedly enough downvotes will eliminate a post or flag it for mod review but who knows what the criteria are?

Even more inexplicably, there is no ignore/block function. For a single-login commenting engine that is used extensively across the internet, this borders on the insane considering the number of trolls that infest the ‘net.

But here’s the dirty little secret: web sites want to be ‘sticky.’ They want eyeballs, impressions, minutes spent, etc. because that means ad revenue. Troll battles are annoying and futile but they keep the hotheads returning to do battle for hours, even days, thus boosting web stats and ad revenue.

Facebook comments are hardly the solution, since a fake account for troll purposes is easy to establish and FB will do nothing to combat them even if they are led by the hand.

PS - I have never understood why Hot Air has not changed or improved its comment system. There are a small number of trolls there that derail every thread and, sadly, the HA users take the bait every time.

[Major Matt Mason]

We use Disqus at a site that I run. I have to manually delete comments that I deem to be worthy of deletion. I'd say that someone from Breitbart is responsible for deleting comments, rather than Disqus.

[SkyPilot]

It is even worse than that.

In 2014, Disqus decided to remove the "downvote" arrow count on all comments. Only "upvote" arrow counts would be displayed.

Users complained to Disqus, and they ignored their users and kept the policy.

https://help.disqus.com/customer/portal/questions/6050471-why-was-the-downvote-count-removed-

And I will tell you why they did this: the liberals were getting murdered in the court of internet public opinion.

I saw many discussions (Politico, The Hill, etc) where the liberal comment would get hundreds of "downvotes" and only a few "upvotes." The conservative (and logical) comments would be upvoted like crazy. Those people who tried to praise Obama, abortion, homosexuality, trans-gender garbage, socialism, "free" Govt handouts, etc. - all got their butts handed to them.

And they did not like it one bit.

So they complained, and complained, and complained. Liberals on the Disqus board joined their effort, and that was that.

[WXRGina]

Nomad, websites that use Disqus have to assign their own moderators—not employees of Disqus—and each website owner/comment moderator sets the Disqus parameters for commenting. I’m a moderator on a few sites that use the Disqus plug-in for comments. It’s not Disqus that censors. It’s whoever runs the website you’re commenting on, so in the case you mentioned, it was a comment moderator at Breitbart who deleted the comments.

[W.]

I saw that, too. Rather disingenuous of them, but that's how the left rolls.

I, too, have been banned from a couple of websites that use Disqus commentary for dispensing truth by whiny liberals who can't have it for all to see. F em, no great loss to me, plenty more out there. ;)

[Bob434]

I had so many comments deleted by disqus (who swears they aren’t the ones who moderate comments) that I quit ALL websites that use disqus- not worth the bother

[nomad]

Well I`ve been getting pretty tired of Beitbart`s lousy website anyway, I usually go to Drudge because of it. Breitbart is slow to load, freezes up often and then crashes. All in all, on a 1-10, I`d give them a two, maybe three. The site truly stinks on ice!

[nomad]

Another reason to quit Breitbart.